a poem (that I wrote at midnight, giving myself 60 minutes and a limit of 30 lines)

If I thought about it long enough, I think
I could image the whole world into compensation -
how I burden the earth with weight from my sneakers
and then the sidewalk earns the right
to say you are a foot, you are a leg.
I can ache for a place that is far away because I am here.
I can leave the door open because it was closed once.
There are several afternoons when I let the wind tell me
that I am a body, when I let it press against my skin and lift
the hair off of my shoulders and suddenly
an invisible thing makes a physical thing feel whole.
I can think that fears are acceptable,
even fears of certain things that won’t ever happen
because they make the impossible things
take on the weight of reality.
Some mornings, I’d rather stay in bed
but sunrises always conquer night times and then
night times conquer sunrises. That is just
the way it goes.
And if I think about it long enough, I think
that I hate every concept of balance.
I hate the metaphors of black and white, hate
that things here must start and end, hate
that gravity is allowed to exist in an abundant universe
and we are contained.
But what is easiest to hate is
loving you:
the sort of thing that exists
with such stubborn realness, meaning it only equates
to holding in breath.